Russians under suspicion of penetrating state election systems

Voting registration systems in Illinois and Arizona were targeted by Russian hackers

Experts say that the methods used are similar to those that were used previously by Russians. The FBI recommends increasing the computer security of all the voting systems in the country.

This is the eight-point threat on a scale from 1 to 10, according to Washington Post. In Illinois, the breaches included the theft of data from as many as 200,000 voter records, officials say. In Arizona, they just managed to steal the username and password of one election official.

"I'm less concerned about the attackers getting access to and downloading the information," said Brian Kalkin, vice president of operations for the Center for Internet Security. "I'm more concerned about the information being altered, modified or deleted."

This is not the first attempt to attack the US databases. According to Reuters, earlier this month, Moscow bureau of New York Times was targeted by a cyber-attack. On July 27, Barak Obama said there was a possibility that Kremlin tried to affect the results of the US elections. Those hackers who are believed to be Russian attacked even the computer systems of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Republican Party organizations.

About a year ago, supposedly Russian government hacker group got into the network of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). They were able to read all email and see the chat traffic of DNC employees. Later, Vice media published the details of cyber-security investigation of DNC hacking. It showed that the Russian Intelligence Service was doubtlessly involved in stealing the secret files.